The most significant measure would appropriate $300 million to upgrade voting technology and attempt to get rid of the out-dated punch card ballots that caused so much controversy in the November election. It was approved 10 to 0.

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That bill, carried by Assembly Speaker Robert Hertzberg, D-Sherman Oaks, is part of Secretary of State Bill Jones' four-part process to move the state toward online voting. Alternatives like touch screen voting have already been used successfully on a trial basis in several California counties.

Two other bills by Assemblyman Kevin Shelley, D-San Francisco, would allow people to automatically receive absentee ballots each election, and would train poll workers to better aid voters in filling out a ballot.

A lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union last week charged that voters in nine California counties that use punch-card voting machines are more than twice as likely to have their votes go uncounted.

The suit claims that the nine counties, including Los Angeles, Alameda and Santa Clara counties, are home to 53.4 percent of the state's registered voters. They also have 80 percent of the state's black voters and two-thirds of its Latino voters, the suit said.

Shelley said his bills, calling for new voting technology and more voter rights, would respond to the issues raised in the ACLU lawsuit.

"To date, people of color in the state of California have not been protected," said Ann Gray-Bird of the NAACP. "(Shelley's) legislation will protect and further empower people at the polls."

Among the provisions of Shelley's bill is one that a "voter's Bill of Rights" would be posted at all polling locations. Among the rights are the ability to receive a new ballot and have the poll stay open long enough to accommodate everyone in line. That bill passed 8 to 4.

The provision allowing registered voters to permanently apply to receive absentee ballots would also permit someone other than the person filling out the absentee ballot to return it if there is a written letter. The bill was approved 8 to 3.

Jones opposes this measure because of the possibility of fraud during voting, his spokesman said.